Category Archives: Web

Cryptocurrencies have taken a seemingly permanent foothold in the world of technology and banking; more and more people are reaching out and investing or making transactions with Bitcoin and similar online coins. The potential impact that these decentralized coins have on our society is enormous for laypeople and tech enthusiasts alike.

Why is decentralization a big deal?

Throughout all of history, from the great Roman Empire to modern-day United States, money has been backed, affiliated, printed, and controlled by a governing body of the state. Artificial inflation rates, adjustable interest rates, and rapid economic collapses and growth are all side-effects of a governing body with an agenda controlling the money and its supply.

Bitcoin, for example, is one of many online cryptocurrencies, and has no official governing entity. This is completely uncharted territory, as not only is it not being manipulated artificially, but it is not associated with any governing body or any regulations and laws that may come with it. The price is determined solely on the open market – supply and demand.

No other currency has ever been free of a governing body and state like cryptocurrencies are today. The major effect of this is what it will do to the banking industry. Banks rely on governments to control interest rates, and they rely on there being a demand for money, specifically a demand for money to be spent and saved. Banks are intertwined with our identity, it is assumed everyone has a checking account and is a member of a large bank, and thus the forfeiting of all of our privacy and personal information that goes along with creating a bank account and identity. The opportunity to choose whether or not to be part of a bank, and further to be your own bank and hold your own cryptocurrencies in your own locked vault, is a privilege none of our ancestors were ever granted.

The implications of a mass of people determining to be their own bank is catastrophic for banking entities. Purchasing and transacting things will become more secure, and more private. People will not be able to be tracked by where they swiped their credit card, as Bitcoin by it’s very nature is anonymous and leaves no trail. The demand for banks will go down and change the entire workings of the very foundation of our government – if enough people choose to take this route.

What’s the catch?

A heated discussion is currently present on the usability of cryptocurrency in today’s world, this is a topic that is under heavy scrutiny as ultimately it will determine how successful it is for cryptocurrencies to be the major player in today’s economy.

The con’s of cryptocurrency currently lie in the usability for small and/or quick transactions in today’s society. In order for Bitcoin to be able to be used, it most be supported by both a buyer and a seller. That means that business owners must have a certain threshold of “tech saviness” to be able to even entertain the thought of accepting bitcoin as a payment.

In conjunction with needing to be supported on both ends, the fees for transacting are determined by how quickly the transaction needs to “go through” the network – see this article on how bitcoin transactions work on the tech side – and how big the transaction is monetarily. For example, a $100 transaction to another person that needs to get to that person in 20 minutes will likely be significantly more expensive than a $100 transaction that needs to get to that person in a 24 hour period. This spells trouble for small transactions, like your local coffee shop. If a coffee shop wants to accept bitcoin, they have two options. They can either take the gamble and allow a longer period of time for transactions to process – running the risk of someone not actually sending a transaction and skimming a free service from them – or require a quick 20 minute transaction but have higher fees for the buyer, and in turn a possible drop in sales via bitcoin.

The last point is crucial to understanding and predicting the future of cryptocurrencies in our world. If the fees and time for transactions to complete are lowered and made more efficient, Bitcoin will almost inevitably take a permanent resting place in our society as a whole, and perhaps be the most used currency, changing the game and freeing money up from regulation, agendas, and politics.

If you’ve paid attention in the news this week, you may have heard the name “Cambridge Analytica” tossed around or something about a “Facebook data breach.” At a glance, it may be hard to tell what these events are all about and how they relate to you. The purpose of this article is to clarify those points and to elucidate what personal information one puts on the internet when using Facebook. As well, we will look at what you can do as a user to protect your data.

The company at the heart of this Facebook data scandal is Cambridge Analytica: a private data analytics firm based in Cambridge, UK, specializing in strategic advertising for elections. They have worked on LEAVE.EU (a pro-Brexit election campaign), as well as Ted Cruz’s and Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential election campaigns. Cambridge Analytica uses “psychographic analysis” to predict and target the kind of people who are most likely to respond to their advertisements. “Psychographic analysis”, simply put, is gathering data on individuals’ psychological profiles and using it to develop and target ads. They get their psychological data from online surveys that determine personality traits of individuals. They compare this personality data with data from survey-takers’ Facebook profiles, and extrapolate the correlations between personality traits and more readily accessible info (likes, friends, age group) onto Facebook users who have not even taken the survey. According to CEO Alexander Nix, “Today in the United States we have somewhere close to four or five thousand data points on every individual […] So we model the personality of every adult across the United States, some 230 million people.”. This wealth of data under their belts is extremely powerful in their business, because they know exactly what kind of people could be swayed by a political ad. By affecting individuals across the US, they can sway whole elections.

Gathering data on individuals who have not waived away their information may sound shady, and in fact it breaks Facebook’s terms and conditions. Facebook allows its users’ data to be collected for academic purposes, but prohibits the sale of that data to “any ad network, data broker or other advertising or monetization-related service.” Cambridge Analytica bought their data from Global Science Research, a private business analytics research company. The data in question was collected by a personality survey (a Facebook app called “thisisyourdigitallife”, a quiz that appears similar to the silly quizzes one often sees while browsing Facebook). This app, with its special academic privileges, was able to harvest data not just from the user who took the personality quiz, but from all the quiz-taker’s friends as well. This was entirely legal under Facebook’s terms and conditions, and was not a “breach” at all. Survey-takers consented before taking it, but their friends were never notified about their data being used. Facebook took down thisisyourdigitallife in 2015 and requested Cambridge Analytica delete the data, however ex-Cambridge Analytica employee Christopher Wylie says, “literally all I had to do was tick a box and sign it and send it back, and that was it. Facebook made zero effort to get the data back.”

This chain of events makes it clear that data analytics companies (as well as malicious hackers) are not above breaking rules to harvest your personal information, and Facebook alone will not protect it. In order to know how your data is being used, you must be conscious of who has access to it.

What kind of data does Facebook have?

If you go onto your Facebook settings, there will be an option to download a copy of your data. My file is about 600 MB, and contains all my messages, photos, and videos, as well as my friends list, advertisement data, all the events I’ve ever been invited to, phone numbers of contacts, posts, likes, even my facial recognition data! What is super important in the realm of targeted advertisement (though not the only info people are interested in) are the ad data, friends list, and likes. The “Ads Topics” section, a huge list of topics I may be interested in that
determines what kind of ads I see regularly, has my character pinned down.Though some of these are admittedly absurd, (Organism? Mason, Ohio? Carrot?) knowing I’m interested in computer science, cooperative businesses, Brian Wilson, UMass, LGBT issues, plus the knowledge that I’m from Connecticut and friends with mostly young adults says a lot about my character even without “psychographic analysis”—so imagine what kind of in-depth record they have of me up at Cambridge Analytica! I implore you, if interested, to download this archive yourself and see what kind of person the ad-brokers of Facebook think you are.

Is there a way to protect my data on Facebook?

What’s out there is out there, and from the Cambridge Analytica episode we know third-party companies may not delete data they’ve already harvested, and Facebook isn’t particularly interested in getting it back, so even being on Facebook could be considered a risk by some. However, it is relatively easy to remove applications that have access to your information, and that is a great way to get started protecting your data from shady data harvesters. These applications are anything that requires you to sign in with Facebook. This can mean other social media networks that link with Facebook (like Spotify, Soundcloud, or Tinder), or Facebook hosted applications (things like Truth Game, What You Would Look Like As The Other Gender, or Which Meme Are You?). In Facebook’s settings you can view and remove applications that seem a little shady.

You can do so by visiting this link, or by going into settings, then going into Apps.

After that you will see a screen like this, and you can view and remove apps from there.

However, according to Facebook, “Apps you install may retain your info after you remove them from Facebook.” They recommend to “Contact the app developer to remove this info”. There is a lot to learn from the events surrounding Facebook and Cambridge Analytica this month, and one lesson is to be wary of who you allow to access your personal information.

Raspbian may be the most common OS on Raspberry Pi devices, but it is definitely not alone in the market. Arch Linux is one such competitor, offering a minimalist disk image that can be customized and specialized for any task, from the ground up – with the help of Arch Linux’s superb package manager, Pacman.

The office website for Arch Linux Arm contains all the necessary files and detailed instructions for the initial setup. After a reasonably straightforward process, plugging in the Raspberry Pi will great you with a command line interface, CLI, akin to old Microsoft DOS.

Luckily for those who enjoy a graphical interface, Arch Linux supports a wide variety in its official repository, but for that, we need the internet. Plenty of tutorials detail how to connect to a typical home wifi, but Eduroam is a bit more challenging. To save everyone several hours of crawling through wikis and forums, the following shall focus on Eduroam.

To begin, we will need root privilege; by default this can be done with the following command:

su

After entering the password, we need to make the file:

nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/eduroam

Quick note: The file doesn’t need to be named eduroam.

Now that we’re in the nano text editor we need to write the configuration for eduroam. Everything except the indentity and password field needs to be copied exactly. For the propose of this Tutorial I’ll be John Smith, jsmith@umass.edu, with password Smith12345.

Quick note: the quotation marks are required, this will not work without them.

Now that that’s set, we need to set the file permissions to root only, as its never good to have passwords in plain text, unsecured.

chmod og-r /etc/wpa_supplicant/eduroam

Now just to make sure that everything was set properly, we will run

ls -l /etc/wpa_supplicant | cut -d ' ' -f 1,3-4,9

The correct output should be the following

-rw------- root root eduroam

If you named the config file something other than eduroam, it will show up on the output as that name.

Now that that’s all set, we can finally connect to the internet.

wpa_supplicant -i wlan0 -c /etc/wpa_supplicant/eduroam &

Provided everything is set correctly, you will see “wlan0: link becomes ready” halfway through the last line of the page, hit enter and just one more command.

dhcpcd

Now, just to check we’re connected, we’ll ping google

ping google.com -c 5

If everything is set, you should see 5 packets transmitted, 5 packets received.
Now that we’re connected, its best to do a full update

pacman -Syyu

At this point, you are free to do what you’d like with Arch. For the sake of brevity I will leave off here, for extra help I highly recommend the official Arch Linux Wiki. For a graphical UI, I highly recommend setting up XFCE4, as well as a network (wifi) manager.

Example of a customized XFCE4 desktop by Erik Dubois

Disclaimer: UMass IT does not currently offer technical support for Raspberry Pi.

You’ve probably heard of Bitcoin. Maybe you’ve even heard of other cryptocurrencies, like Ethereum. Maybe you’ve heard that these cryptocurrencies are mined, but maybe you don’t understand how exactly a digital coin could be mined. We’re going to discuss what cryptocurrency miners do and why they do it. We will be discussing the Bitcoin blockchain in particular, but keep in mind that Bitcoin has grown several orders of magnitude greater in the 9-10 years it’s been around. Though other cryptocurrencies change some things up a bit, the same general concepts apply to most blockchain-based cryptocurrencies.

What is Bitcoin?

Bitcoin is the first and the most well-known cryptocurrency. Bitcoin came about in 2009 after someone (or someones, nobody really knows) nicknamed Satoshi Nakamoto released a whitepaper describing a concept for a decentralized peer-to-peer digital currency based on a distributed ledger called a blockchain, and created by cryptographic computing. Okay, those are a lot of fancy words, and if you’ve ever asked someone what Bitcoin is then they’ve probably thrown the same word soup at you without much explanation, so let’s break it down a bit:

Decentralized means that the system works without a main central server, such as a bank. Think of a farmer’s market versus a supermarket; a supermarket is a centralized produce vendor whereas a farmer’s market is a decentralized produce vendor.

Peer-to-peer means that the system works by each user communicating directly with other user. It’s like talking to someone face-to-face instead of messaging them through a middleman like Facebook. If you’ve ever used BitTorrent (to download Linux distributions and public-domain copies of the U.S. Constitution, of course), you’ve been a peer on a peer-to-peer BitTorrent network.

Blockchain is a hot topic right now, but it’s one of the harder concepts to describe. A blockchain performs the job of a ledger at a bank, keeping track of what transactions occurred. What makes blockchain a big deal is that it’s decentralized, meaning that you don’t have to trust a central authority with the list of transactions. Blockchains were first described in Nakamoto’s Bitcoin whitepaper, but Bitcoin itself is not equivalent to blockchain. Bitcoin uses a blockchain. A blockchain is made up of a chain of blocks. Each block contains a set of transactions, and the hash of the previous block, thus chaining them together.

Hashing is the one-way (irreversible) process of converting any input into a string of bits. Hashing is useful in computer science and cryptography because it’s really easy to get the hash of something, but it’s almost impossible to find out what input originally made a particular hash. Any input will always have the same output, but any little difference will make a completely different hash. For example, in the hashing algorithm that Bitcoin uses called SHA-256, “UMass” will always be:

D79DCC44F746FB74C71CE93CAA65A527AD0A743E7E57F5D5E5A7F21337D742F9

but “UMasss” will be completely different:

3EA2E03CE0286302451E2EAB2ABFEC310A6A164B4F27634FED4E81744A50D4E4

In this 64-character string, each character represents 4 bits. This hash can also be represented as 256 binary bits:

Those are the general details that you need to know to understand cryptocurrency. Miners are just one kind of participant in cryptocurrency.

Who are miners?

Anybody with a Bitcoin wallet address can participate in the blockchain, but not everybody who participates has to mine. Miners are the ones with the big, beefy computers that run the blockchain network. Miners run a mining program on their computer. The program connects to other miners on the network and constantly requests the current state of the blockchain. The miners all race against each other to make a new block to add to the blockchain. When a miner successfully makes a new block, they broadcast it to the other miners in the network. The winning miner gets a reward of 12.5 BTC for successfully adding to the blockchain, and the miners begin the race again.

Okay, so what are the miners doing?

Miners can’t just add blocks to the blockchain whenever they want. This is where the difficulty of cryptocurrency mining comes from. Miners construct candidate blocks and hash them. They compare that hash against a target.

Now get ready for a little bit of math: Remember those 256-bit hashes we talked about? They’re a big deal because there are 2^256 possible hashes (that’s a LOT!), ranging from all 0’s to all 1’s. The Bitcoin network has a difficulty value that changes over time to make finding a valid block easier or harder. Every time a miner hashes a candidate block, they look at the binary value of the hash, and in particular, how many 0s the hash starts with. When a candidate block fails to meet the target, as they often do, the miner program tries to construct a different block. If the number of 0’s at the start of the hash is at least the target amount specified by the difficulty, then the block is valid!

Remember that changing the block in any way makes a completely different hash, so a block with a hash one 0 short of the target isn’t any closer to being valid than another block with a hash a hundred 0’s short of the target. The unpredictability of hashes makes mining similar to a lottery. Every candidate block has as good of a chance of having a valid hash as any other block. However, if you have more computer power, you have better odds of finding a valid block. In one 10 minute period, a supercomputer will be able to hash more blocks than a laptop. This is similar to a lottery; any lottery ticket has the same odds of winning as another ticket, but having more tickets increases your odds of winning.

Can I become a miner?

You probably won’t be able to productively mine Bitcoin alone. It’s like buying 1 lottery ticket when other people are buying millions. Nowadays, most Bitcoin miners pool their mining power together into mining pools. They mine Bitcoin together to increase the chances that one of them finds the next block, and if one of the miners gets the 12.5 BTC reward, they split their earnings with the rest of the pool pro-rata: based on the computing power (number of lottery tickets) contributed.

Takeaways

The U.S. dollar used to be tied to the supply of gold. A U.S. dollar bill was essentially an I.O.U. from the U.S. Federal Reserve for some amount of gold, and you could exchange paper currency for gold at any time. The gold standard was valuable because gold is rare and you have to mine for it in a quarry. Instead of laboring by digging in the quarries, Bitcoin miners labor by calculating hashes. Nobody can make fraudulent gold out of thin air. Bitcoin employs the same rules, but instead of making the scarce resource gold, they made it computer power. It’s possible for a Bitcoin miner to get improbably lucky and find 8 valid blocks in one day and earn 100 BTC, just like it’s possible but improbable to find a massive golden boulder while mining underground one day. These things are effectively impossible, but it is actually impossible for someone to fake a block on the blockchain (The hash would be invalid!) or to fake a golden nugget. (You can chemically detect fool’s gold!)

Other cryptocurrencies work in different ways. Some use different hashing algorithms. For example, Zcash is based on a mining algorithm called Equihash that is designed to be best mined by the kinds of graphics cards found in gaming computers. Some blockchains aren’t mined at all. Ripple is a coin whose cryptocurrency “token” XRP is mostly controlled by the company itself. All possible XRP tokens already exist and new ones cannot be “minted” into existence, unlike the 12.5 BTC mining reward in Bitcoin, and most XRP tokens are still owned by the Ripple company. Some coins, such as NEO, are not even made valuable by scarcity of mining power at all. Instead of using “proof of work” like Bitcoin, they use “proof of stake” to validate ownership. You get paid for simply having some NEO, and the more you have, the more you get!

Blockchains and cryptocurrencies are have become popular buzzwords in the ever-connected worlds of computer science and finance. Blockchain is a creative new application of cryptography, computer networking, and processing power. It’s so new that people are still figuring out what else blockchains can be applied to. Digital currency seems to be the current trend, but blockchains could one day revolutionize health care record-keeping or digital elections. Research into blockchain technology has highlighted many weaknesses in the concept; papers have been published on doublespend attacks, selfish mining attacks, eclipse attacks, Sybil attacks, etc. Yet the technology still has great potential. Cryptocurrency mining has already brought up concerns over environmental impact (mining uses a lot of electricity!) and hardware costs (graphics card prices have increased dramatically!), but mining is nevertheless an engaging, fun and potentially profitable way to get involved in the newest technology to change the world.

When I listen to a podcast, there is often an ad for ZipRecruiter. ZipRecruiter “is the fastest way to find great people,” or so it says on the homepage of their website. Essentially, employers post a job to ZipRecruiter and the job posting gets pushed to all sorts of job searching websites like Glassdoor, job.com, geebo, and a bunch of others I have never heard of before. You just fill out the information once and your job gets posted to 200 different sites. That’s kind of cool. But there is a big problem with that. HR now has to deal with hundreds of applications; and if you are applying to a company that uses ZipRecruiter, they are probably having a robot go through your resume and cover letter to look for words like “manage”, “teamwork”, or “synergize.”
But I don’t want my resume looked at by a bot. I want my resume to be looked at by a real human being. I have applied through these websites before and I don’t even get a rejection letter from the company in question, yet alone an idea that someone printed out my carefully crafted resume and cover letter and then read them. This is where you reach a hurdle on the path to post-graduation-job-nirvana. I want to find jobs, so I look on Glassdoor, job.com, & geebo but then I want to stand out from the pack. How do I do that? I have no idea. Instead I am offering a solution to avoid those websites.

1. The other day I was sitting, looking at a magazine, when I realized something great about the thing in my hand. Everyone in the industry takes part in the magazine. Let’s say you are a psychology major looking for an internship. Why not pick up the latest version of Psychology Today and go through the pages and check out companies that advertise? My point is that your favorite magazines already reflect your passions, why not go through the pages of your passions to look for the company that you didn’t think to apply to?

2. Now that you’ve identified where you want to apply, keep a list. There are some tutorials out there on the internet on how to keep a proper list of applications. I don’t really like those. They include things like: application deadline, if you’ve completed the cover letter, other application materials, and people in the company you may know.
I really disagree with this strategy. Most employers announce in advance when the postings are going up and most employers have already found a match by the end of the deadline. Instead of a “application deadline” field, I prefer a “check during ___ (season)” field. Then, once the application is open, I write the cover letter and send of my resume in one sitting. Just to get it out of the way. I don’t need to check in with my checklist.

3. Everyone always says that the only sure way to get a job is through people you know. While I can agree that networking is probably the most consistent way to get your foot in the door, it isn’t always possible for all people. That’s why I’ve been using UMass career fairs as pure networking opportunities. Instead of spamming my resume across the career fair, I talk to a few recruiters that I know are just as passionate as I am on finding a job that’s the right fit.

4. City websites are my other secret weapon to avoid ZipRecruiter. I will search things like “Best Places to work in Seattle” and then I apply to all of those. Or I will search “Businesses with offices in the Prudential Building, Boston” because I dream of one day working there. I am always just looking for more names to put on my list that don’t get hundreds of applicants that all sound exactly like me.

5. I also tend to look at the products around me that I don’t necessarily think about. Odwalla and IMAX are both companies that I see all the time, but I wouldn’t think of applying to those because I don’t write them down.

There are ways to avoid your resume getting lost in a stack a mile high, it just takes some planning and forethought to avoid it.

Do you have an old laptop lying around that you don’t know what to do with? Are you concerned about your data given recent tech company security breaches? Or maybe you’re just bored and want to fiddle around on some computers. Either way here are five free applications that you can host yourself:

Nextcloud – For those who don’t have access to unlimited cloud storage, or those who aren’t comfortable not being in control of their files, you can host your own cloud storage. Nextcloud provides similar functionality to storage providers like Google Drive and Box allowing for file sharing and online editing. There are client apps for all major phones and computers and even provides the option to enable a calendar app. Although Nextcloud is relatively new, it is based on Owncloud which is relatively established, although not quite as modern.

Gitlab – For the developers out there that don’t want to pay for private repositories there’s gitlab. This is a very mature product that is packed full of features like Gitlab Continuous Integration, code snippets, and project wikis. Gitlab can integrate with many external applications as well such as Visual Studio, Jenkins, KanBan and Eclipse. For those that don’t have a free computer to run it on, they also provide hosting for both repository storage and continuous integration runners, although those options do cost money.

Docuwiki – If you constantly find yourself looking up the same information or you just want a place to organize notes Docuwiki is the app for you. It supports a markup formatting style, multiple namespaces to organize your information, and diff report viewer to see view page changes. If the outdated UI doesn’t really appeal to you then Confluence is another option. It is geared more towards the enterprise environment, but for $10 (one time, not a subscription) you can host Confluence for up to ten users.

Mail-in-a-Box – There are a lot of email providers out there, but if this is something you’re interested in hosting Mail-in-a-Box is a great solution. Although the setup of the the application itself is fairly easy, there isn’t much customization that can be done. For a more robust solution iRedMail might be the way to go. Note hosting email can be tricky, and generally is not possible from home internet connections.

Subsonic – All the audiophiles will appreciate Subsonic, an alternative to Google Play and iTunes. You can now store all your music yourself rather than being restricted to the Google or Apple music clients. With apps for all computers and phones you can listen to your music wherever you are. Subsonic includes support for playlists, most major music file formats, and customized themes.

Have you ever found yourself watching tech tutorials online? Nothing to be ashamed of, as everyone has run into an issue they need help solving at some point in their lives. Now, have you ever found yourself watching a BAD tech tutorial online? You know, one where the audio sounds like it’s being dragged across concrete and the video is literally a blurry recording of a computer screen? It ironically feels like a lot of the time the people who make tech tutorials need a tech tutorial on how to make good quality tech tutorials.

So join me, Parker Louison, as I wave my hands around awkwardly for ten minutes while trying my best to give helpful tips for making your tech tutorial professional, clean, and stand out among all the low effort content plaguing the internet!

Last semester, my Moodle looked a little barren. Only two of my classes actually had Moodle pages. This would be okay if only 2 of my classes had websites. But all of them did. In fact, most of the classes I took had multiple websites that I was expected to check, and memorize, and be a part of throughout the semester. This is the story of how I kept up with:

courses.umass.edu

people.umass.edu

moodle.umass.edu

owl.oit.umass.edu

piazza.com

Flat World Learn On

SimNet

TopHat

Investopedia

Class Capture

The Beginning

At the beginning of the semester it was impossible to make a calendar. My syllabi (which weren’t given out in class) were difficult to find. Because I didn’t have a syllabus from which I could look at the link to the teacher’s page, I had to remember the individual links to each professor’s class. This was a total waste of my time. I couldn’t just give up either because that syllabus is where the class textbook was. I felt trapped by the learning curve of new URLs that were being slung at me. I had moments were I questioned my ability to use computers. Was I so bad that I couldn’t handle a few new websites? Has technology already left me in the past?

The Semester

One of the classes I am taking is on technology integration into various parts of your life. The class is an introductory business class with a tech focus. This class is the biggest culprit of too many websites. For homework we need website A, for class we use website B, for lab we use website C, the tests are based on the information from website D, and everything is poorly managed by website E.

Another class is completely a pen on paper note taking class. In the middle of lecture, my professor will reference something on the website and then quickly go back to dictating notes. Reflecting on it, this teaching had a method to using online resources that I enjoyed. Everything I needed to learn for the tests was given to me in class and if I didn’t understand a concept, there were in depth help on the website.

One class has updates on Moodle that just directs me toward the online OWL course. This wasn’t terrible. I am ok with classes that give me a Moodle dashboard so I have one place to start my search for homework and text books. The OWL course described also had the textbook. This was really nice. One stop shopping for one class.

My last class (I know, I am a slacker that only took 4 classes this semester) never used the online resource which meant I never got practice using it. This was a problem when I needed to use it.

The End

I got over the learning curve of the 10 websites for 4 classes I was taking. But next semester I will just have to go through the same thing. I wish that professors at UMass all had a Moodle page that would at least have the syllabus and a link to their preferred website. But they don’t do that.

“If This, Then That”, or IFTTT, is a powerful and easy to use automation tool that can make your life easier. IFTTT is an easy way to automate tasks that could be repetitive or inconvenient. It operates on the fundamental idea of if statements from programming. Users can create “applets”, which are simply just scripts, that trigger when an event occurs. These applets can be as simple as “If I take a picture on my phone, upload it to Facebook”, or range to be much more complex. IFTTT is integrated with over 300 different channels, including major services such as Facebook, Twitter, Dropbox, and many others, which makes automating your digital life incredibly easy.

Getting Started with IFTTT and Your First Applet

Getting started with IFTTT is very easy. Simply head over to the IFTTT website and sign up. After signing up, you’ll be read to start automating by creating your first applet. In this article, we will build a simple example applet to send a text message of today’s weather report every morning.

In order to create an applet, click on “My Applets” at the top of the page, and select “New Applet”.

Now you need to select a service, by selecting the “this” keyword. In our example, we want to send a text message of the weather every morning. This means that the service will be under a “weather” service like Weather Underground. Hundreds of services are connected through IFTTT, so the possibilities are almost limitless. You can create applets that are based off something happening on Facebook, or even your Android/iOS device.

Next, you need to select a trigger. Again, our sample applet is just to send a text message of the weather report to your text in the morning. This trigger is simply “Today’s weather report”. Triggers often have additional fields that need to be filled out. In this particular one, the time of the report needs to be filled out.

Next, an action service must be selected. This is the “that” part of IFTTT. Our example applet is going to send a text message, so the action service is going to fall under the SMS category.

Like triggers, there are hundreds of action services that can be be used in your applets. In this particular action, you can customize the text message using variables called “ingredients”.

Ingredients are simply variables provided by the trigger service. In this example, since we chose Weather Underground as the trigger service, then we are able to customize our text message using weather related variables provided by Weather Underground such as temperature or condition.

After creating an action, you simply need to review your applet. In this case, we’ve just created an applet that will send a text message about the weather every day. If you’re satisfied with what it does, you can hit finish and IFTTT will trigger your applet whenever the trigger event occurs. Even from this simple applet, it is easy to see that the possibilities of automation are limitless!

Former U.S. spy agency contractor Edward Snowden is wanted by the United States for leaking details of U.S. government intelligence programs

In a scenario where someone has a file of information stored on a private server with the intent to keep it private, is it ever justified for someone else to expose a security flaw and post the information anonymously on the internet? There exists a fine line where “It depends” on the scenario. But this classification simply does not do the case justice as there are extraneous circumstances where this kind of theft and distribution is justifiable.

One such case is whistle-blowing. Edward Snowden is still a man of much controversy. Exiled for leaking sensitive government documents, some label him a hero, others a traitor. Snowden was former Special Forces and later joined the CIA as a technology specialist. He stole top-secret documents pertaining to the National Security Agency and FBI tapping directly into the central servers of leading U.S Internet companies to extract personal data. Snowden leaked these documents to the Washington Post, exposing the PRISM code, which collected private data from personal servers of American citizens. This program was born out of a failed warrantless domestic surveillance act and kept under lock and key to circumvent the public eye. Americans were unaware and alarmed by the breadth of unwarranted government surveillance programs to collect, store, and search their private data.

Although Snowden illegally distributed classified information, the government was, in effect, doing the same but with personal data of its constituents. I would argue that Snowden is a hero. He educated the American people about the NSA overstepping their bounds and infringing upon American rights. Governments exist to ensure the safety of the populace, but privacy concerns will always be in conflict with government surveillance and threat-prevention. The government should not operate in the shadows; is beholden to its people, and they are entitled to know what is going on.

The United States government charged Snowden with theft, “unauthorized communication of national defense information,” and “willful communication of classified communications intelligence information to an unauthorized person.” The documents that came to light following Snowden’s leaks only pertained to unlawful practices, and did not compromise national security. Therefore, it appears as though the government is trying to cover up their own mistakes. Perhaps this is most telling in one of Edward Snowden’s recent tweets :

“Break classification rules for the public’s benefit, and you could be exiled.Do it for personal benefit, and you could be President.” – @Snowden

This commentary on Hillary Clinton shows that in the eyes of the government who is right and wrong changes on a case to case basis. In many ways, Snowden’s case mirrors Daniel Ellsberg’s leak of the Pentagon Papers in 1971. The Pentagon Papers contained evidence that the U.S. Government had mislead the public regarding the Vietnam war, strengthening anti-war sentiment among the American populace. In both cases, whistle-blowing was a positive force, educating the public about abuses happening behind their back. While in general practice, stealing private information and distributing it to the public is malpractice, in these cases, the crime of stealing was to expose a larger evil and provide a wake-up call for the general population.

Alternatively, in the vast majority of cases accessing private files via a security flaw is malicious, and the government should pursue charges. While above I advocated for a limited form of “hacktivism,” it was a special case to expose abuses by the government which fundamentally infringed on rights to privacy. In almost all cultures, religions and societies stealing is recognized as wrongdoing and should rightfully be treated as such. Stealing sensitive information and posting it online should be treated in a similar manner. Publishing incriminating files about someone else online can ruin their life chances. For example, during the infamous iCloud hack, thousands of nude or pornographic pictures of celebrities were released online. This was private information which the leaker took advantage of for personal gain. For many female celebrities it was degrading and humiliating. Therefore, the leaker responsible for the iCloud leaks was not justified in taking and posting the files. While the definition of leaking sensitive information for the “common good” can be in itself a blurred line, but a situation like the iCloud leak evidently did not fit in this category. Hacking Apple’s servers to access and leak inappropriate photos can only be labeled as a malevolent attack on female celebrities, which could have potentially devastating repercussions for their career.

While the iCloud hack was a notorious use of leaking private data in a hateful way, there are more profound ways which posting private data can destroy someone’s life. Most notably, stealing financial information and identification (such as SSID) can have a huge, detrimental effect on someone’s life. My grandmother was a victim of identity theft, where someone she knew and trusted stole her personal information and used it for personal gain. This same scenario plays out online constantly and can drain someone’s life savings, reduce their access to credit and loans, and leave them with a tarnished reputation. Again, we draw a line between leaking something in the public’s interest and exposing a security flaw for the leaker’s benefit. By gaining access to personal files, hackers could wreck havoc and destroy lives. Obviously this type of data breach is unacceptable, and cannot be justified.

Overall, taking sensitive material and posting it anonymously online can generally be regarded as malpractice, however, their are exceptions such as whistle-blowing where the leaker is doing so for the common good. These cases are far and few between, and the “bad cases” have harming repercussions which can follow someone throughout their life. Ultimately, to recall Snowden’s case, everyone has a right to privacy. This is why someone leveraging a security flaw and posting files online is wrong from the get go, because it supersedes personal secrecy. In an increasingly digital world it is difficult to keep anything private, but everyone has a fundamental right to privacy which should not be disrespected or infringed upon.

Over the past 5 years the term ‘cloud’ has been moving around left and right. If you are asking what the cloud is then I’ll assure you it is not an actual cloud in the sky, but a term used to say that your data is kept for you in a far-off place. This was to make it easy for consumers to conceptualize where their data is, without too much of a misunderstanding.

Understanding the cloud conceptually:

What cloud really is is remote computing and storage, usually provided by corporate servers. A way to understand this best is by simple example: Let’s say you have a photo gallery on your computer and you want to place it in “the cloud”. I tell you I have a cloud service so that you can always have your files available without having them on your computer. You agree, and send the files to me via the internet. I tell you “you are now backed up in the cloud!” since your files are on my computer at this point. You then delete all the files on your device, but it’s okay since there is a copy on my computer. But now you want to view that old photo of yourself at that last weeks Thanksgiving get-together, but it is no longer on your computer. You simply ask me (the cloud) for that file back, and I send you the photo back for you to view.. and when you are done with it you can delete it again, or make changes to it and send me back the changes. Simple as that. I being the cloud, am essentially a remote flash drive or external hard drive to send you data when you need it.

Now obviously this is not exactly how the cloud works, but it is close. Let’s instead change it so my computer is now facebook or Google’s computers in a datacenter far-off from you, and that data is encrypted for security and provided with highspeed enterprise internet to send you your files as quickly as possible. Now we are using the cloud in the way it really works in the real world! Cloud services make it easy to view your files when “they are not there” in your computer. Such as Google Drive; when you install Google Drive you can view what files are available as if they are on your computer. This is Google’s servers telling you what file’s are on them. If you were to open a file, Google’s data center will send your computer that file to be stored as RAM rather than storage; when you click ‘Save’ you simply re-upload that file back to Google’s servers.

WEB APPS! More than just storage:

Most people think of only being able to store their files in the cloud, but there is much more available to them. As we already discussed cloud storage is a way to send data back and forth between computers. This means we can do more than just store your files, but we can also do tasks to those files and send you back the results in web-based applications!

Google Docs is a great example of this. When you open your Google Drive file in Docs, a website displays your file that is stored on Google’s servers. You can make changes to it on your browser and in real-time Google is making changes to that file on their end.

How to adapt to the future:

Cloud computing is starting to become the next big thing. We’re starting to see that we no longer need our computers to have high-end processors and large storage drives as long as we have a good internet connection. This means our computer’s can now be minimal in that they can be thinner, sleeker, and most importantly much cheaper.

Google has expressed this ideology of having a minimalist-type computer with their line of Chromebooks. Anyone trying to get into the web-app lifestyle would love the idea of the device. They’re cheap at ~$250, have fast storage for quick boot times, and have great network cards to maintain a solid internet connection. They only have 32gb of storage, but that’s okay since the entire operating system is based off the chrome browser. How can you manage just using the chrome browser? Again, web apps!

Here is a list of common programs and tasks you can replace with web-apps:

Storage: Box (recommended if you are a UMass affiliate), Google Drive, iCloud, or Mega

Gaming: Gaming Streaming Services! Such as OnLive, PS Now, or you can stream remotely if you have a high-end system.

Photoshop: Pixlr! A great website where you can have most of the features of Photoshop available to you for free all online!

Video-Editing: Use WeVideo, a website to upload videos and edit them all online.

Programming: There are several cloud based programming IDEs available, such as Cloud9 or CodeAnywhere!

Office: Google Docs has everything you need! From word, to powerpoint, to even excel. You and other collaborators can update your documents all in the Google Cloud, and even download them to your computer as a word document, pdf, or image file.

Music: You can use Spotify as a web-app, Google Play Music, or Amazon Prime Music as online subscription-based streaming services!

Movies/Shows: Most of us don’t even save movies anymore. Services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon Prime Video let you stream thousands of movies and shows instantly.

Other: If you are in desperate need of say a Windows PC or Mac and you have a desktop at home, then you can stream your computer’s session to your device. Services like TeamViewer, RDP, and Chrome Remote Desktop make this incredibly easy.

Recommended:

As you can see most services can be provided by Google, and is my recommendation to use for being in the Cloud. A simple subscription to Google Play services can get you all the apps you would need to perform most to all computer-related tasks today. Chrome extensions and apps are also limitless as you can download thousands of them online.

Conclusion:

My advice is to try to future-proof yourself and use the cloud for all purposes. It’s a great way to keep your data safe and backed up. It’s also a way to spend less on potentially unnecessary computing power. With the world turning to web-based applications, a simple chromebook for $200 could last you years and could save you thousands compared to buying the latest Apple or PC hardware.

Hi there! If you’ve clicked on this article, there is a non zero chance you want to learn HTML.

Today, I will be going over some of the basics of HTML. But first we must answer the question:

What IS HTML?

HTML Stands for HyperText Markup Language, and it provides the backbone for the code that makes up most web pages you visit on a daily basis. HTML code is usually written and modified using a variety of tags, styles and scripts.

Tags are the backbone of HTML, providing a basic structure for web pages.

Styles allow a web developer to modify the layout of a webpage but modifying attributes like the positioning, color, or size of elements on the webpage.

Scripts allow a web developer to create ways for users to interact with webpages in a variety of ways.

Today, we will be creating a basic HTML document. To begin, open up A simple text editor. The most common/easy to use for this exercise are Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac).

This is where we’ll begin. As previously stated, tags are the backbone of an HTML document, and are what we’ll be using to create a very basic text page. Every tag has an openingtag and closing tag. Text is then placed in between these tags.

Let’s run through a quick example: To create a full header tag, one would simply type the opening tag for a header: <h1>, followed by some text, and finally, the closing header tag: </h1>. Altogether, it would look something like this:

<h1> This is what a header looks like! </h1>?

Got that? To break it down one last time:

<h1> is our opening tag. It tells the document, “hey, I’m about to start a header tag. The stuff to follow is going to make a header for my page!”

</h1> tells the document, “I’m done writing the header now. Close it up!”

On a very basic level, this is all it takes to write a line of HTML code. Now, let’s dive into a few of the basic tag types.

Tag Types

Today we will be going over two very basic HTML tags to help give you a taste of writing HTML code.

Header

The header tag is a very important one, usually used to format the title of a webpage. We worked with it a bit up above, but there’s an extra part about headers that is important to know, for formatting purposes. The number that comes after the “h” in the header tag ranges from 1-6. These numbers rank the “importance” of each header in a given HTML document. Each rank, from <h1> all the way to <h6>, produce a progressively smaller header.

Consider the following block of code:

<h1> This is what an h1 header looks like! </h1>
<h2> This is what an h2 header looks like! </h2>
<h3> This is what an h3 header looks like! </h3>
<h4> This is what an h4 header looks like! </h4>
<h5> This is what an h5 header looks like! </h5>
<h6> This is what an h6 header looks like! </h6>

This code, when saved and viewed as an HTML document, looks like this:

As we can see, each successive “rank” in our headers produces a smaller and smaller line, with the last couple of lines ending up quite small. This allows you to create “sub headers” to rank and organize items on your page by importance.

Paragraph

The paragraph tag is a simple and elegant way of “wrapping” text in your document, so that it doesn’t all stay together on one, long line. To represent a paragraph, use the following structure:

<p> This is my paragraph! By using this tag, it will wrap all of the text that I’m typing inside of it to make it much nicer to look at and read in my HTML document. Thanks <p> tag! </p>

Now that we’ve learned a couple of HTML tags, let’s use them to whip up your own HTML document!

Open up Notepad, TextEdit, or similar text program.

Type the following on the first line: <h1> This is my first HTML Document!</h1>

On the next line, copy and paste the following: <p> The paragraph tag allows me to input text into my document, and format it to make it readable!</p>

Finally type an <h2> header, with your name, and the date. Don’t forget to close the tag!

Save the file as an HTML document. To do this, when naming the file, type ‘.html’ after the file name (for example: MyFirstHTML.html). Save it somewhere on your computer that is easily accessible.

Your final code should look something like this:

<h1> This is my first HTML Document!</h1>
<p> The paragraph tag allows me to input text into my document, and format it to make it readable!</p>
<h2> First Name Last Name, October 4, 2016 </h2>

When you try to open up the HTML document, it should look like this:

Congratulations! This article provides a very basic overview of HTML, and teaches you the basics of creating your first HTML document. Next time, we will discuss some more basic structural tags, as well as begin discussing styles, which will allow us to further modify the layout and color, as well as other features of our web page.

Netflix just launched a new service, Fast.com, which allows people to check their download speed. It seems like a pretty mundane tool that only techie’s or people who love arguing with their ISP’s would care about but that belies the brilliant move that Netflix just made.

To understand why this is so important we should first look at the pre-existing services that allowed you to test your download speeds. Speedtest.net is the most ubiquitous tool for checking your download speeds online, while that gives it legitimacy, it also allows ISP’s to prioritize traffic to this site. It is technically possible that an ISP may provide prioritized traffic to Speedtest.net but slowing down or severely limiting to sites such as YouTube or Netflix in an attempt to limit how much a customer can download. This is a violation of net neutrality, a system that if in place would force ISP’s to treat all data as the same thus removing the possibility for Comcast (who is owned by NBCUniversal) to prioritize their own entertainment services over 3rd party services like Netflix. The scary thing is that, Comcast did something very similar, allowing their data to not count against their customers data caps while watching on Xbox 360’s, but counting data from services such as Netflix, HBO GO, and YouTube. Net neutrality is not a dead debate and it is important to be vigilant of how your data is processed.

Fast.com test of Eduroam

Speedtest.net, the most popular internet speed test

The genius behind Netflix creating Fast.com is that they are hosting the service from the same servers that host Netflix.com. This removes the ability of ISP’s to prioritize fast.com data without prioritizing Netflix.com traffic, essentially this forces the hand of ISP’s to treat Netflix data fairly or be publicly shamed and most likely fined by the FCC. What this does not fix is data discrimination to other sites like HBO GO or YouTube, but the fix is simple, just provide a speed test function with your website to ensure no prioritization. While this is a move that strikes back at overstepping ISP’s I think it speaks more to the unfortunate environment that the internet has become, dominated by large corporations who have other interests besides providing the best internet access possible.

In conclusion, yes, this is something that techies get excited about, but this has larger implications for anyone who access the internet. Fair access to the internet is something that we need to ensure because this is a global service, we cannot be limited by corporate or national interests. For the first time in history we have a technology that binds us together as a whole, we cannot let ourselves divide it up.

These days, there is a lot of talk about cyber security, secure web browsing and tips to keep your information safe. One of the best ways to do this is to stick to websites that use an encrypted connection. Browsing completely secure can only truly be accomplished through websites using something call SSL, or Secure Sockets Layer. This allows an encrypted connection to be established between the web browser that you’re using, and the website you’re accessing. This kind of connection is usually indicated by a green lock and HTTPS in the URL bar of your web browser.

A note about URLs starting in https: a green https is good; a red https, usually precluded by a warning that the certificate shouldn’t be trusted, is questionable at best. The way that ssl ensures a secure connection is by installing a certificate in your browser that is signed by a trusted entity, such as VeriSign. When this occurs, you’ll access the page and the lock and HTTPS will be green as shown above. However, anyone can create certificates, and if they aren’t signed by a trusted entity, your browser will warn you.

This doesn’t mean that your connection isn’t encrypted, it still is and no one will be able to see your information in between your computer and the website’s server. What it does mean, is that the person or company who owns the website isn’t necessarily to be trusted.

In April, about 1/3 of all web traffic was encrypted, in large part due to Google, Facebook and Twitter. With Netflix planning to make the switch to HTTPS, some research indicates that this could jump to as much as 2/3 of all web traffic by the end of the year. On the subject of Facebook and Twitter, though, is yet another type of encryption that further secures your data: end-to-end encryption.

This mostly relates to private messaging between you and someone else. Examples include email, Facebook or Twitter messages or even text messages. End-to-end encryption allows all your data to be encrypted not between you and the website you’re using, but between you and the person you’re messaging. This ensures that Facebook or Twitter or Google, etc. can’t see your private messages. While this advanced privacy tool isn’t yet available for most services, there are browser extensions and add-ons that can provide this for you. As far as texting and even phone calls go there are a number of apps available for both iOS and Android that are designed to provide private communication.

So while truly secure internet access isn’t inherently provided with an internet connection, it is relatively easy to secure your web activity by making sure that your data is encrypted. This could be through secure sites, browser add-ons, or mobile applications, but whichever method(s) you use can go a long way in ensuring your data stays private.

For those of you graduating from UMass this spring, congratulations! It’s an exciting time to look ahead to the post-college life; however, before you head off on your future endeavors, it might be a good idea to backup your student email before you leave.

Why should I backup my email?

Your student email is deactivated one year after you leave the university. All other services (wireless access, Moodle, etc) are deactivated six months after leaving the university. Although for most people this is a year after graduating in May, the actual timeline is one year after you are last enrolled in anything at UMass – for example, if you graduate but take one final summer class to finish your degree, your email will be deactivated one year after that summer course ends.

There is no official need to backup your email, however many students find it convenient to still have those messages saved after graduating.

How do I backup my email?

To back up your email, you will need a third party mail client such as Mozilla Thunderbird, Apple Mail, or Microsoft Outlook. For the sake of this tutorial I will use Mozilla Thunderbird because it is both free and available for Mac OS and Windows, however if you prefer to use Apple Mail (which is pre-installed on any Mac) or Microsoft Outlook (available with many installations of Microsoft Office), those are perfectly fine as well. You will also need a non-UMass, personal email account such as a Gmail or Yahoo account.

1. Install Thunderbird

Thunderbird can be downloaded and installed from Mozilla’s website here:

Thunderbird may take a few minutes to download all of your messages. After adding the account, you should see it listed on the left-hand column. Click Inbox to see your messages as they download.

4. Add a personal email account to Thunderbird

This can be any non-UMass email account which you would like to move your old school emails over to. A personal gmail or yahoo account should work, however you can use any email account which is able to be configured with Thunderbird.

5. Create a folder in your personal email account

You should now have two email accounts added to Thunderbird, one being your school email and the other being a personal email. They will both be listed on the left-hand column. Underneath your personal email account, create a new folder, named “umass backups” or whatever you’d like to call it. This folder is where we will migrate all of your UMass emails.

6. Begin moving folders into “umass backups”

Now that you have both accounts in the same place, you can click the Inbox (and any other folders) underneath your student account in the left-hand column, and drag that down into the “umass backups” folder under your personal account. Thunderbird will now copy everything over to the personal account. Please note that this process may take some time.

7. Check to make sure your files moved over.

After everything has been moved, Thunderbird will synchronize your personal email account and everything should now be copied into that account. It might be a good idea to log into the web client for your personal email to check and make sure the “umass backups” folder is there and up to date.

Questions?

If you have questions about this process, please contact IT User Services at 413-545-9400 or it@umass.edu. Additionally, if you prefer to use Apple Mail or Outlook for this process, instructions on adding university email accounts to these programs can be found on our website under support center articles.

The word “hack” seems to have a very negative connotation these days, seemingly always associated with big company data breaches and malicious foreign governments. This past weekend, however, the campus saw the positive implications of the word, as over 500 students from across the country traveled to campus to attend HackUMass, the 3rd annual hackathon at Umass.

Congratulations to all of the participants at HackUMass III !

So what is a hackathon? Well, as a computer science student, I like to solve problems. These days it seems like there very few things that can’t be improved or made more efficient by some sort of technical solution. At any hackathon, like this past weekend at HackUMass, students break up into teams to create a technical solution to a problem. This weekend, each team had between midnight Friday and noon Sunday to build, design, and troubleshoot their solution. Most teams worked through the 36 hours without much, if any, sleep.

Help Center Consultant Andrew B. and his team for their project “Campus for Sale”.

My team hit Facebook to search for inspiration of what to build. We ended up on the UMass ‘Free and For Sale’ group and began looking through the posts there. Here, students can post anything and everything they are looking to sell to other students on campus. It seemed like a sort of Craiglist on Facebook. Here’s the issue though: Facebook is a social media platform. It’s simply not built for this sort of thing. Items that are posted disappear as more posts are made after it. You can’t easily search for items you are looking for, and there is no sort of filtering or category search. We knew we could build something better.

The categories featured on the homepage.

Armed with just our laptops and an endless supply of Redbull, we set to work in our cozy room in the Integrated Learning Center (ILC). Our project, CampusForSale, was going to be a website that let students buy and sell items on campus. We thought it was important for the website to only allow students to post items, as we wanted to make sure it was as easy and safe to pickup items as possible. Most of my team had never done any web development before the event, so we took a divide and conquer approach. Two of us worked mainly on the back-end database and search functionalities, while the other two worked on the front-end website. In order to make it more useful than it’s Facebook counterpart we made sure that you could search for items, and browse listings by category.

Over the course of the weekend, each of us got only about 4 or 5 hours of sleep total, but our prototype of the site was live at http://www.campus.forsale by noon on Sunday. After an initial round of judging, CampusForSale was selected as a finalist and we got the opportunity to present our project at the closing ceremonies!

Now that you have graduated you may be thinking about the future. On the other hand, you may not be thinking about the future. Either way, enjoy your week of cap throwing, social gatherings, and parents. Maybe you got a cool graduation gift from that uncle or you’re just taking some time off or you are traveling the world. No matter what, reality may hit you sooner rather than later if you don’t have a job lined up.

If you are really late in the game, the government offers an interesting career path tool. That can help you figure out what you want to do with your life. Check out My Next Move to see where you should be going with your life.

Another under-appreciated resource is Linkedin. Recruiters are constantly combing through profiles and reaching out to potential employees whose skills match the job descriptions of the positions they are trying to fill. There has been an increasing expectation for job seekers to have a Linkedin account, so having an up-to-date profile could be the difference between an interview and a paper shredder.

You can also check out services for UMass Alumni from UMass Career Services. Career Connect, a tool to search for jobs and internships and update your resume, is available for one year after graduation. Just keep in mind that Career Services will be transitioning to a new service this summer, so be sure to backup your resume and job postings by May 20th. As an alternative, a similar non-UMass affiliated job search tool is Indeed.

Whether you are a senior leaving high school or a recent graduate from UMass, knowing where to go next may be daunting.

Maybe you already have a job lined up and you know exactly what you want to do with your life and what you will do with your first pay stub. No matter what, you can still check out this online career tool. When I found this website today I didn’t intend to use it to discover my calling. Instead, I tried switching the answers in my head to see what my opposite result would be. This was a fun game. My career “opposite” was midwife. Not that there is anything wrong with being a midwife, it just isn’t for me.

BitTorrent is a technology that is mainly used in the sharing of large files, though it is also favorable in achieving maximum redundancy of a file on the internet. Basically the technology is a Peer-to-Peer system, in which clients (your personal computer) connect to a central tracking server, the “tracker”. This “tracker” keeps track of all the “peers” connected to a single file that is being shared on the network. When peers connect to the server they begin to capture bytes of the file that is being downloaded and in the same likeness begins re-uploading those bytes to allow other “peers” to get at the file being downloaded. The action of re-uploading is also called “seeding”, which allows other “peers” connected to this file to get a maximized connection for download. All in all, it can be summarized as being a file sharing service.

What’s the controversy?

The controversy around the use of BitTorrent technology lies in the notorious connotation that the technology has with enabling copyright infringement. Infamous torrent trackers make headline news as they are among some of the most trafficked websites in the world. According to the Alexa Internet Site Ranking service, the 217th most trafficked website in the world is a known torrent tracker. People are very aware of these websites, but if they are unfamiliar with the technology and what it means to be a patron to these sites, they can suffer consequences that can impact their lives severely.

What’s “seeding”?

Seeding is the act of uploading to a torrent data stream. As a key part of the technology, seeding is what allows for data redundancy when other seeders go offline, as well as a boost to overall throughput/data speeds when other peers want to download a file. As a seeder you connect to the torrent network, and other peers are able to see where to retrieve data for the file they want to download. The way the download works is based on a network identifier known as an IP Address, so every “peer” connected to the same torrent are either uploading or downloading and are known to every other “peer”.

What’s being a “peer”?

A peer is anyone connected to a torrent file, and downloading or uploading data to the collective network.

What’s being a “leech”?

A peer who rather than committing to upload and download data, is stopping their clients uploading to resist contribution to the collective network.

BitTorrent for legal and legitimate use.

BitTorrent can be legally used for file transmission, when the material isn’t subject to Copyright, some materials such as open-source software or media with Creative-Commons licenses can be subject to a lesser extent of Copyright, and are often okay to distribute freely. One such site that takes advantage of the BitTorrent protocol is http://linuxtracker.org/ where individuals can download various distributions of the free and open-source Linux Operating System using BitTorrent.

What are the consequences of infringing copyright?

Because of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act enacted in 1998, any person caught violating a copyright owners exclusive rights, can be penalized in ways where the violator would have to pay damages, being forced via injunction to stop infringing activities, and potential jail-time. As a UMass student you are also subject to the policies of Copyright and Fair Use instituted by the University, which outlines penalties for violating Copyright.

The concept that the Internet should be a right for all people, and should be unrestricted by the companies that provide the networks that connect people to the internet. By restricting network access, the companies providing access can throttle or limit connection speeds based on the online content you are trying to get hold of, which is the antithesis of the concept of the free and open internet.

Who are the key players?

President Obama: The president recently announced his support of “net neutrality” in the form of taking a stance on the way internet is delivered to the American people. He is looking to back legislation which would declare internet as a Utility, much like the electricity, cable and telephone companies are regulated in the way they provide services to American households, Internet service will also receive the same treatment as those other services.

ISP’s (Internet Service Providers): ISP’s are the companies/entities paid by consumers to provide them with Internet Access. Some big names in the industry would be Comcast/Universal, Time Warner Cable, Charter, and Cox, just to name a few. Here at the university, the campus is its own ISP, fulfilling the role of getting you connected to the Internet.

The FCC/Chairman Wheeler: As of February 26th 2015, the FCC completed a ruling that favored net neutrality, which enables the free internet, by amending the Communications Act of 1934. In his justification, he is quoted as saying, “This is no more a plan to regulate the Internet than the First Amendment is a plan to regulate free speech. They both stand for the same concept.”

Since a free and open internet has been what users have been accustomed to since the inception of the internet, the lack of such freedom would definitely impact the way people use the internet as a resource. If people were forced to pay for access to sites that were outside of a certain subscription model, people would eventually catch on to the fact that they were getting taken advantage of by these corporations that have the power to charge twice for a certain service. For example, the video subscription service Netflix (a leader in passing net neutrality legislation) , which costs $8.99 at the writing of this article, may have to vary subscription costs based on the way the ISP charges for access to their content. This ultimately demonstrates that the only real entities that would gain from a throttled internet would be the people providing access (ISP’s) and not the content creators (users of the Internet).

How can these decisions affect the future of the Internet?

Although the FCC has released the specifications of the new legislation which classifies the Internet as a utility, which subjects it to laws regarding blocking of some content, other advances have yet to be made, where individuals will have unfiltered access to some media streaming services. There are some companies looking to sidestep the FCC’s legislation, such as Sony or HBO potentially filing for classification as non-BIAS (non-broadband internet access service), which would prioritize these sites traffic by grouping them outside common internet access.

By allowing these internet companies to regulate how the internet is accessed, even if by just limiting the speed, they are in a way censoring content for the general public and would have the capabilities to extort certain companies for prioritized access speed. With the recent amendment in February, they have staved off the companies that are fighting so hard to undermine the “Open Internet”, but as with all legislation, how long will it take until these companies find a loophole on which to further their agenda?

Did you know that the University provides all students, faculty, and staff with their own webpage? This article explains the basics of how to access your personal webpage. If you have not yet read our previous article about Data Storage via FTP, I recommend doing so before you read this one over, as the same basic principles apply.

Please note that this will not cover HTML or use of Dreamweaver, just the steps to get access to your personal webpage.

First, you will need two resources to be able to access and update your website:

1) A File-Transfer-Protocol (FTP) application. In plain English this is a bridge that connects you with your webpage, allowing you to directly access it and change any files inside of the webpage as needed. Instructions on how to log in will be briefly explained here, but more detailed instructions can be found here under the section captioned ‘Using FTP with WinSCP and Filezilla’.

ITUS supports two types of FTP applications: WinSCP and Filezilla. You can obtain WinSCP here (Windows machines only!) and Filezilla here (select “Filezilla client”). If you are using a Mac, you can also connect using the built-in terminal, no downloads needed, but it is not very user-friendly and not recommended for users unfamiliar with a command line prompt. I personally prefer WinSCP and will continue instructions as if we were using WinSCP.

2) Web Authoring Software. This is technically optional, but I do not recommend anyone without experience in webpage design to create a website without one of these. ITUS supports a program called Dreamweaver. It costs money, but it is available on our Computer Classrooms if you don’t want to purchase the product.

Alright! You have your FTP application and your Web Authoring Software. For the next step, you’ll want to go to this URL: webadmin.oit.umass.edu . Once you log in, you will see your Web Space Management Tool:

This will show you how much space you have left in your webpage. If you receive an error when you try to upload more files in the future, please go to webadmin.oit.umass.edu and make sure your webpage is not full. You may now log out and no longer need to log into this page unless you want to check the space.

Now we are going to connect to your website using WinSCP. Please copy the screenshot below, replacing “netID” and “your password” with your IT Account netID and password.

Then select “Login”.

Once you have successfully logged in, a new window will appear with two panels. On the left-hand side are files on your own personal computer. On the right-hand side you will see all the files in your website. If you wish to bring any files from your computer to the website, simply drag the desired file from the left panel to the right panel. If you would like to pull any files from the website, drag from right to left.

If you explore through the files in the right-hand panel, you will come across a file called index.html. This is the main page that will appear when someone goes to your website by typing in people.umass.edu/your-netID. If you double click it, it will open a text document with the appropriate HTML inside it and will look nothing like the real website. Or if you have never made any edits to your website, then there won’t be much content at all. This is normal.

In theory, one could build and make edits to their website by making direct edits to this index.html file. However, this is impractical and tedious. We can use a web authoring software (step 2 above) to make editing the website much easier and intuitive. Instructions on how to connect Dreamweaver to your website can be found here.

At this point you are set up and ready to start making edits to your UMass website. Congratulations!

From cable-cutters to college students, nearly everybody is interested in video streaming services. You may be tempted to use torrenting software to get your TV shows and movies, but this software is notorious for landing people with copyright violation notices and occasionally some hefty fines. There are many legal alternatives to torrenting software, and I will discuss them here. Continue reading →

Have you had trouble finding a good site to help you create a bibliography? Tired of hunting down pieces of information about your source? Or maybe you’re not sure if you have enough information in your citations. Now there is an answer to all of your questions and that answer is Zotero. Zotero creates citations for you at the click of a button! It allows you to store your citations in folders or libraries for organization and upon registering with an email and password(for free) you can access your citations across multiple devices! Continue reading →

Have you ever dreamed of designing your own website? By taking advantage of the free and discounted software offered by IT User Services your dream may be closer than you think. One of the best tools available for website design is Adobe Dreamweaver. Dreamweaver gives users the ability to design and edit webpages using HTML, CSS, Javascript, PHP, etc. The software is available through the Adobe Campus Agreement for select faculty, staff, and students. You can see if you are eligible for the program by logging in at : http://www.oit.umass.edu/support/software/adobe-campus-agreement-no-cost-software-faculty-staff Continue reading →

YouTube has tons of uses – primarily video watching, but often podcasts and music can be found on the great video behemoth. While iOS 7 has plenty of music players, sometimes you want to listen to something you’ve found on YouTube without killing your battery by leaving the screen on. But when you want to listen (and not watch) a video on your iPhone, what do you do?Continue reading →

The UMass Amherst library is the tallest academic library in the world. With twenty-six floors, the library has a wide variety of academic and recreational books, as well as online resources available to students, faculty, and staff. One of these online resources is eBooks. A wide variety of classic texts and articles are now available as eBooks that community members can access easily on laptops, tablets, and mobile devices. Continue reading →